Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion on Bing since launch

[Tiko7523]

Quote:

Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion, an average drain of $1 billion per quarter, on Bing since it introduced the search engine in 2009, CNNMoney reported on Wednesday. Despite the losses, Microsoft’s Bing reached a 30% share of the U.S. search engine market in April of this year, slowly narrowing the gap with Google, although comScore’s figures pin the search engine’s share at just 14.7%. Despite the constant drain, Microsoft still has a plan for Bing. During the company’s financial analyst meeting in California recently, Microsoft’s president of online services Qi Lu said his company hopes to use Bing to “reorganize the web” to “change the game fundamentally” instead of taking on Google in a head-to-head dogfight. Read on for more. “We are able to try things with much more flexibility,” Bing director Stefan Weitz said. “If we make a mistake, it’s not going to take down the company.” Analysts believe Microsoft will continue to lose money, however. “Bing will likely be better than Google over time, but even if it is, users and advertisers still need to go to them,” McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Sid Parakh told CNNMoney. “To be clear, this will take a long, long time to play out. This is something Microsoft will continue to lose money on.”

http://www.bgr.com/2011/09/21/micros...-since-launch/

[Blzer]

That's because nobody uses Internet Explorer... and because Google's search engine kicks so much more ***.

[SuperBowlNachos]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blzer

That's because nobody uses Internet Explorer... and because Google's search engine kicks so much more ***.

I used bing for the first time the other day by accident. My main draw for google is it's the most simple page you can get.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Blzer

That's because nobody uses Internet Explorer... and because Google's search engine kicks so much more ***.

Not true at all, Internet Explorer actually dominates web browser market share. EDIT: So "dominates" isn't quite the right word anymore, Firefox has a much stronger foothold than I thought, but IE still has a 14-percent market share lead over Mozilla's property (39% to 25%).

The way I see it, if Microsoft wants to make money on Bing, they have to be willing to lose money on Bing, because going up against the behemoth that is Google is no enviable task.

[Blzer]

Quote: Originally Posted by CHooe

Not true at all, Internet Explorer actually dominates web browser market share. EDIT: So "dominates" isn't quite the right word anymore, Firefox has a much stronger foothold than I thought, but IE still has a 14-percent market share lead over Mozilla's property (39% to 25%). The way I see it, if Microsoft wants to make money on Bing, they have to be willing to lose money on Bing, because going up against the behemoth that is Google is no enviable task.

Sorry, it was more of an OS inside joke and sarcasm, because we don't use IE for the most part.

But even still, as you point out, it's in the lead or anything, and people really probably only know of Bing because of the default homepage or that commercial you rarely see. When there is Google, it's tough to really try and compete at all.

[Steel5]

I use Bing because I get reward points for searching on it that I can cash in for MS Points.

[Behindshadows]

People still use IE...wtf!!! Are we in Bedrock?

And what's a bing? smh

[p2xgamers]

I was an avid google user but I now use Bing all the time, just like certain features like the frontpage and where recent searches appear. The reward stuff is pretty nifty too.